Before me were three windows, a movie about card counting, a movie about self worth, and another about self expression.
21
200 kg beauty
Step Up 2
I chose 21. And I absolutely loved it!
I love cards. I love thrills and living on the edge (too much of it sometimes). And Kevin Spacey never fails to impress me as an actor, he's brilliant.
21 sets it up nice and dandy for anyone who enjoy playing cards, ivy league schools and having been an underdog become a top dog. I could relate very much to the story line, not the ivy league school bit but that endearing ambition of wanting to be in control.
And the story pans out for Ben Campbell, a young gifted mathematician - fantastic at numbers, a genius founded by his non-linear subject professor, Micky Rosa. Their relationship intrigued me. When Ben applied for Harvard Med and had everything going for him for admission except for money, he was in queue like the many impressive resume holders for the Robinsons scholarship. He needed that scholarship, as much as he had planned it all his life; he was at a standstill because for every preparation that he had made, it was not impressively enough.
What they were looking for was this - someone who would just jump off the page, something that would dazzle them. A life experience.
Watch the movie. I won't let out too much. After you have, read this entry again for the following.
I grew up with numbers. From a very young age, my dad had trained me. I started learning my times table at age 4. By 6, I had 1x1 to 1x12 series all memorized in my head. At 15, I had differentiation & integration equation all figured out during my school holidays, because dad had awarded me a stack of workbooks to do it. I was never good at math, honestly. I just did a memory game. When I used to go for car drives with dad, I hated traffic jams because he would jump on me with car plate numbers - what's the answer for that? And this is what he'll do. out of the 4 numbers; multiply the first 2 numbers, +/- the 3rd number and divided by the 4th number
4321
4 x 3 + 2 / 1 = ?
So imagine the cars in Malaysia, I'm thankful dad wasn't a fan of the Federal Highway, otherwise known as the longest parking lot between 5-8pm every weekday :)
And to be frank, at my teen age, the only numbers I was interested in were female phone numbers :)
Dad is a brilliant mathematician, still is considering one of his monthly journals is Mathematics Today. I knew he was a die hard fan of math when I had joined him in London 2 years ago, and he met up with a mate of his who brought his son. Uncle Jon was a math lecturer and his son was reading math in Bath. We went to an English pub and had beer together on a round table between the four of us. They were talking math. I was counting beer bubbles. It was the most boring conversation I ever had in a pub. It wasn't them, but I just didn't dig math at all, not in the way they pronounced it. I enjoyed the theory though.
So I moved away and sat by the bar alone watched an english football match. I smiled even though I didn't know who was playing. Just like how much I have moved away from the main subject matter of this entry.
So my passion for numbers had differed from dad, he respected the numbers. Whereas I abused them. I had a big hook on cards, blackjack, studs - the casinos; I loved the thrill and I jumped on it at a very young age. I was a high risk taker in my own realm in anything I did and dad pushed only for excellence in anything he wanted me to do. We didn't meet halfway, when we tried - we sprung further away from one another. The years had gone by till a peaking point where we never spoke for 2 years, we only communicated through writing. A whiteboard to be be precise.
He would leave an equation on my whiteboard to entice my mind and I would revert in fury, my emotions got the better of me. I remember the whiteboard conversation (if we could call it that) - where I threw a series of question and he replied with answers that were mine but with a ''( )". To exemplify, Life is about taking risk. He would reply not changing much but this - Life is about taking (calculated) risks. Can you see how the numbers and literature are coming together. If we would look back at it now, we were possibly creating art. But more importantly, dad was teaching perspectives.
And I knew the card game well, i knew how to push the mind & emotion during the gamble, i knew people who count cards, I knew where to build capital when we had none, I knew all the bad stuff and created a lot of opportunities for myself. I may get caught for this (saying it) - trying my best to be vague; so follow me if you can. We will always take a signature exam before graduating high school and comes to the month before April, where the results makes our path and we move on to the next phase i.e. college. I had seized an opportunity that year considering my (some) experience in print of which I started working with dad in the factor at 7, he always prepared me early and I hated that drill when everyone had Sunway Lagoon to go to, but I had to hang out with Soon Wei's baboon father (:P) - to work and know how tough life is. All gained, nothing loss I'm sure.
So i created new masterpieces out of that skill, I made/alter result slips to give a person an edge. I gave that person a freedom, a chance, an opportunity to seek what he/she was looking for. I could have played God for that moment at that foolish age of 18. I made new scripts with better results and these more affluent shadows get a new car, a small price to pay in trade of that their parents had to offer. Some feared the wrath of their parents, and needed to sustain that from happening and came to find me as well. I thought I was helping.
Then came dad barging through the door once when he saw me having different stacks of paper being compared to different shadow of light and had pasted the many different copies and he jumped, "what are you doing?" I replied, "I'm learning photoshop". You better not get caught for this. And i knew where he was coming from and I knew where I was going. To inject a gentle reminder - I was foolish 18 before you gasp at me now!
I had a runner, I never showed my face. The cut was 70-30. Runner takes 30, i take 70 of the profit. To what the numbers made up to, it was a lot for my foolish 18 and I could pay for my Redang holidays, but my snooker cue to hustle more dough in, and keep capital for CNY killing. I was intentional about counting cards (just at a different game), taking chances. And then it took over me, I wanted to give up my education - take 1/3 of my education fund to process this award winning way of doing life. Dad strongly objected and the war of bloodlines began because I never understood. He failed to express himself calmly either and I was already at a self defense mechanism version 3.5 by then.
And life took an upside down turn for me, everything that I could dabble in - i had a chance. I knew how the VCD business had work, I knew how the cuts and profits were shared out. How much snooker parlours were making, and how the kuda machine rakes in the gear for these outlets. Why did I? well, I had a lot of time because I wasn't living at home at one point. Yea, I ran out and stayed out on the streets, I slept at cigarette burnt sofas with newspapers as the blanket for the eye. With RM5, you wake up the next day only thinking one thing - that you'll still have that RM5 by the end of the day. So you did what you had to do - you count cards on the different tables; I played and that was then I built the tenacity to fight and survive.
I became very good at what I was doing but completely losing myself.
While I was taking chances and gambling shots, God wasn't doing that. He gave up for me. As I look back through it all, its an amazing story and testimony the fact that I am standing or to be real, sitting on my bed blogging this memory out.
I finally went back to school, and graduated from the top australian university and gained entry into an honors program. I did it because I finally wanted to. And that escapism I had for 4 years at down under was a major self discovery for me.
I was nothing like my father. I like words he loved numbers. We both love beers, and we both love conversations and watching movies. Perhaps we are more alike that we think we are. Why the non-linear trend huh?
So everything I do now, is with full purpose and a part of me still wants to give a try at an ivy league school if the road ever permits and the internet sometimes allow you a sneak peek as you lust over the beautiful campus and testimonials and you get intrigued by the interview questions for one school that mattered to me asked me this - What matters to you most and why?
I read that question 2 years ago. I was determined to write my answer however, I'm still writing it because I'm still finding out. But it really set out a perspective for me.
School or no school, cards or no cards, aces or bases - the fact was this - always account for variable change. Watch 21 and you'll know what I mean.
Always account for variable change.
And when Ben campbell accounted for variable change, in the lowest of his moments - the climbed back up to the top and managed to share a great life experience. He dazzled.
I had life experience. Did I dazzle you?
Did I jump off the page?
Hmm after reading this, gives me another insight on you. Must've been quite a challenge to take that piece of memory from you.
The bit on the casinos and sleeping on burnt cigarette couches.. your physical appearance definitely betrays the amount of knowledge and adventures you have gone through..lol.
But glad that to know you're using those past experiences for a different purpose in life..In that aspect.. where God gave up for you... I don't believe He ever once gave up on you.
the teacher in me must speak once and i will forever hold my peace after this: details matter.
you may not want to share details on a blog (wise of you) but it might be worth your while to write them down in a different file in your computer. the best writing comes out when you work through the details. :)